'Sandeep aur Pinky Faraar' release delayed amid Coronavirus pandemic

Yash Raj Films on Saturday announced that the release of their upcoming movie Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar has been delayed amid growing concerns over Coronavirus. The film, directed by Dibakar Banerjee, and starring Parineeti Chopra and Arjun Kapoor, was slated to release on March 20. Yash Raj Films made an official announcement through their social media handles earlier on Saturday.

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The Parineeti Chopra-Arjun Kapoor starrer had been in the cans for almost three years and was finally slated to see the light of the day. However, it is the latest one to join the ever-growing list of films being delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak in India. In the past few days, big-budget films like Rohit Shetty's Sooryavanshi, Kabir Khan's '83 and Hollywood films like John Krasinki's a Quiet Place 2, Disney's live-action film Mulan and the much-awaited James Bond film No Time to Die have had to take a back seat amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Read | Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar trailer: It's Parineeti Chopra & Arjun Kapoor against the world!

Speaking to an agency earlier on Wednesday, the film's director Dibakar Banerjee spoke about his attempt to make something twisted on gender and patriarchy. Even the names are a flip on gender expectations as the female lead is known as 'Sandeep' while the male protagonist is called 'Pinky'.

"The thought was to look at gender in a way we hadn't looked at before. I was not really satisfied with the template of a typical relationship between a man and a woman. Why make a film about it? That's when, certain things that I've always wondered about, came together. In this case, it's gender," Dibakar told PTI.

Read | Ranveer Singh cheers enthusiastically for Arjun Kapoor's 'Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar'

The director, known for films such as Khosla Ka Ghosla, Love Sex Aur Dhokha and Shanghai, is not new to subverting expectations and predictable scenarios to tell stories that stand apart in Bollywood.

Read | Dibakar Banerjee opens up about Sandeep Aur Pinki Faraar's unique plot, Read here